


View, With Field and Forest

by Dryad



Category: Parade's End - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 13:57:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5458928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dryad/pseuds/Dryad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>See this man, Christopher Tietjens...</p>
            </blockquote>





	View, With Field and Forest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bow/gifts).



> Happy Yule, Bow!

See this man, Christopher Tietjens, sitting at a desk, a fine Queen Anne affair placed in one corner of the library at Groby. There is a window in front of the desk overlooking where field and forest meet. On the desk is a sheet of paper, a pot of ink, and an old-fashioned pen with a gold nib. Christopher is staring out the window, watching the leaves on the maples dance in the breeze, or maybe watching their shadows on the ground, for the sky is cloudless and the sun is strong and it's almost mid-day. 

Christopher has been in the library since after breakfast. 

He read the papers with his eggs and toast and sausage (no tomato catsup, he doesn't like anything too red or red and messy, not after the action he's seen), and taken a cup of Earl Grey into the library, eschewing the offer of the entire pot. He loves Earl Grey, finds it a more soothing scent than regular morning tea, which sometimes has a deleterious effect upon his state of mind. Occasionally, and unwantedly, it reminds him of people and places and he just can't, some days.

He has drunk the tea, the empty cup on the edge of the desk a delicate reminder of exactly what he is in the library to do.

Eventually Christopher blinks moisture back into his eyes, and, coming back to himself, realizes he has spent at least three hours staring into the aether. Oh, he randomly opened the Oxford dictionary to his favorite letters and perused the pages for new words, and even took down a volume of John Donne's poetry to peruse, but he did not find it inspirational. He's beginning to wonder, in fact, if he is cut out for this sort of thing in the written word. With a pained sigh, Christopher dips the pen in the ink - a mixture of black and violet that is wasteful to use on such a list - and begins to write.

_Sylvia Tietjens_

_1) Mother of his child. Probably._  
2) passionate  
3) mysterious 

Christopher stares at the paper, then draws two lines through _mysterious_ and next to it, writes _enigmatic_

_3)enigmatic_  
4) wants more than he can provide?  
5) which is not money, though money is always good  
6) Sylvia not necessarily greedy  
7) beautiful  
8) charming  
9) funny  
10) bitter  
11) resentful  
12) petulant 

He pauses again before continuing, albeit more slowly than before.

_13) lively_  
14) promiscuous  
15) spiteful 

He lays down the pen and puts his head in his hands. He cannot deny who she is, or what she is, though for both of their sakes he wishes he could. What was he, to her? He knows there was a fundamental lack between them, although he is also not sure what that lack is. She wants something from him, but every time he's approached her, she's lashed out and pushed him away instead. It is all very confusing. Her paramours, and he knows there are many, he's seen the looks men have given him, that mixture of admiration, admonition, jealousy, and disgust. Perhaps her paramours will be better men than he, and serve her in the manner in which she desires.

Groby...Christopher looks around the library. He will miss Groby. Once Sylvia sets herself up her permanently, he will not return. Which brings him to his next subject. 

Putting aside the paper with _Sylvia_ written at the top, he takes another piece of plain paper from the left-hand drawer and draws an abstract scribble that is nonetheless aesthetically pleasing to the eye, writes _Miss Valentine Wannop_ in cursive with many flourishes, then matches his artistic scribble with another one on the other side of the new name.

_1) beautiful_  
2) natural  
3) intelligent  
4) a higher thinker  
5) a philosopher  
6) principled  
7) loyal  
8) honest  
9) precious 

Looking at the last item, Christopher frowns. Valentine is ...he senses she is not delicate, not like Sylvia. Or, rather, Valentine appreciates the truth, and reserves the right to change her mind should the occasion arise. Indeed, just think of the letter she had written to him only this week! A letter of boldness, of frank discussion of her unnamed students and the book they had been giggling over. He has been amazed, quite amazed, and impressed with Valentine's decision to give the book back to the children. Of course it's one he wants as well, and after all this time, he is going to do what so many have mocked him for not, and live in carnal relations with a woman who is not his wife.

It will ruin Valentine. He does care about this, actually, yet he has no intention of leaving her. He has no intention of divorcing Sylvia, for that matter, nor she, him. It is the nature of their class not to take such a step. So Valentine will suffer, and for that, he is truly sorry.

But he _is_ going to take her, by God he is.

She will be his respite, his nurse, his Dryad and his Naiad, his - well, not his Bacchae, Miss Wannop was not prone to drink, or at least in the rare times they had been in one another's company, she did not appear to drink at all. Will she would require the same of him?

He will retreat from Society, he decides. He has no use for it; it has no use for him, not any more. Mark will of course retain his position, unaffected by the scandal. At least Christopher is fairly confident Mark will b unaffected. Mark enjoys his position in Government in a way that Christopher never has. But then, they _are_ very different people. Hard to believe they came from the same father. Indeed, Mark enjoys it greatly, unlike Christopher, who is beyond done with the decisions he has made in faraway offices. War has taught him the truth of his former employment, if little else.

Glancing down, Christopher is surprised and annoyed to find he has been resting the pen on the paper, making a pennyworth sized splotch of black-violet ink. It's growing larger as he watches, and he jerks the pen up with a moue of distaste. Just as well he's burning these papers before he leaves Groby. Actually, he'll do it when he goes on his afternoon walk. Tapping the pen against the inkwell, he then lays it in its holder. He's done with lists, with pondering Sylvia, with wondering if he's doing the right thing, for he by the laws of Society, he is not, yet by the laws of his own heart - yes.

Christopher fans the second paper to dry the splotch, and as soon as it is safe to do so, folds it, along with the first paper, and tucks it into his inner jacket pocket. Standing, he turns and surveys the library once more. 

_Goodbye,_ he thinks, with fondness and nostalgia for the endless hours of pleasure the library has brought him over the years. That Groby has brought him. Well, he's done with it all.

Nodding once to himself, Christopher pushes his chair back to its rightful place at the desk, and strides to the hallway, and out the door, where he will find a spot in the forest and burn his papers, and think of the past no more.

**Author's Note:**

> I think I fell for Christopher Tietjens in this. I confess I began the book several years ago, but became frustrated by the writing style and gave up on it. Then someone mentioned it was sort of stream-of-consciousness, which I find utterly intriguing, and decided to try again - but I ran out of time, and have thus relied on the mini-series. Having said that, for as far as I got in the book, I found Christopher rather wonderful. A particular kind of person who remains both mocked and treasured, when we run across his like in modern times.
> 
> I was also reminded of how much of a tragedy Parade's End is - I think for pretty much everyone, but in particular Christopher and Sylvia. And that's all I'll say about that for now.
> 
> Dear Bow, I do so hope you find this fic to your liking. I struggled with it for a long while, but I think - I _hope_ \- this fulfills your prompt!


End file.
